Black neighborhoods will feel the brunt of the Trump administration’s recent move to end federal limits on carbon pollution from America’s power plants, residents and environmental advocates said. The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it will repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural […]
EPA
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Federal Government Moves to Limit Public Input on Data Center Projects
Americans don’t agree on much, but that’s not the case when it comes to data centers. Seven in 10 Americans oppose building data centers for artificial intelligence in or near their communities. Despite this, the federal government is moving to make it easier for them to be built. And in some places, residents won’t even […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
In Roseland, an Oil Disaster Leaves Black Parents Asking How to Keep Their Kids Safe
ROSELAND, Louisiana — As a young boy in the 1960s, almost every weekend Elbert McGee walked a half-mile with his father through the wooded streets of Roseland to the Tangipahoa River. There, he learned to swim and fish for bass, crappie, and the occasional catfish. “We had a good, good life as children,” McGee said, […]
Posted inCourts, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Trump Ordered to Release Billions in Climate Grants Meant for Black Communities
Dominika Parry never stopped fighting for Jackson, Mississippi, residents even after the Trump administration terminated a multibillion-dollar program last year meant to help the Black city still reeling from a water crisis. For years, if water did flow out of Black households’ faucets in Jackson at all, it was often brown. It left elders and […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Politics & Policy, Unsafe Water
In Roseland, Black Residents Were Told They Were Safe as Toxic Chemicals Spread
ROSELAND, La. — First came the oily sludge that spotted homes, waterways, and gardens. Then the stomach aches, headaches, nosebleeds, brain fog, and dead chickens and fish that pastor Marvin Vernon began tallying in his notebook. Vernon joined other residents this past Saturday morning to protest what they describe as official neglect and a “cover […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Partner Content
Drone Footage Shows Musk’s AI Power Plant Flouting Clean Air Regulations in Black Community
This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action, and produced in partnership with The Guardian. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here. Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its data centers with unpermitted gas turbines, according to a Floodlight visual investigation. Thermal drone footage shows xAI […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health Equity
The U.S. Government Now Says Climate Change Doesn’t Harm Human Health
In one sweeping move, President Donald Trump on Thursday erased the scientific and legal foundation of America’s clean air protections and modern climate policies. For the first time in a generation, the U.S. government no longer officially recognizes carbon pollution as a danger to public health. Black people are exposed to more pollution, on average, […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Trump Rollbacks Put Children’s Health at Risk as Pollution Increases
On the morning of Jan. 10, when the federal government said it would stop prioritizing how many lives are saved by cutting air pollution, Sonya Sanders flashed back seven years to when a fossil fuel facility near her South Philadelphia home exploded. The 2019 blast rattled windows across the city and could have killed thousands […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
An Explosion Left a Black Town Contaminated. Politics Are Stunting the Cleanup.
On the banks of the Tangipahoa River in South Louisiana, thick oil slicks and chemical odors ripple across the water. Five weeks after an oil and lubricant facility exploded, sending oily soot as far as 40 miles away, Black residents still complain that the chemical smell is so strong that it wakes them up in […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
In This Black Louisiana Town, Forests are Browning and Animals are Dying
The forests that once sheltered the small town of Roseland are turning brown. A month after a sprawling oil and lubricant facility exploded and rained down slick black droplets all over this predominantly Black town in rural Louisiana, the trees are sick. Federal officials said there’s no threat to human health; however, independent tests recently […]
